slappybrown wrote:Which is the problem. Its extremely difficult to win a Cup when the other team is basically gifted a couple games in a 7 game series because they can rely on a horrifying meltdown or two or three.

Difficult, but not impossible. Here's his game log for the 2009 SCF:

Game 1: Stopped 27 of 30 shots (.900) in a 3-1 loss.Game 2: Stopped 23 of 26 shots (.885) in a 3-1 loss.Game 3: Stopped 27 of 29 shots (.931) in a 4-2 win. One goal against was scored on the power play.Game 4: Stopped 37 of 39 shots (.949) in a 4-2 win.Game 5: Stopped 16 of 21 shots (.762) in a 5-0 loss. Three goals against were scored on the power play, and he was pulled 35:40 into the game.Game 6: Stopped 25 of 26 shots (.962) in a 2-1 win.Game 7: Stopped 23 of 24 shots (.958) in a 2-1 win.

His play in the four wins was absolutely incredible, which is why I find it ridiculous that people think he contributed nothing to their Stanley Cup win or that they won in spite of him. And his play in the 3 losses was poor, following a similar model to the rest of his career.

The difficulty in this is that the team needs to be able to show up when Fleury puts in his good games, which means they really can't afford to have an off game because you don't know which goalie will show up.

slappybrown wrote:Those lines look much better than the TB series tfrizz. Its only one blow up game versus three sub-850 games in the TB series.

They are. That was actually probably his best series of that playoff run. His numbers were much better in the ECF, but that was against a pretty bad Carolina team. He had 7 sub-.900 games in the first two rounds (13 games) of those playoffs, and even had one against Carolina (.854). They also show that Fleury can, in fact, handle playoff pressure. It's one of the main reasons I believe it's the pressure of being a playoff favourite, rather than just being in the playoffs, that's giving Fleury troubles.

It does fit the trend though. Outside of his incredible 2008 run the only real consistency to Fleury's playoffs has been inconsistency, which is very frustrating considering he's grown more and more consistent in regular season play.

sil wrote:I still feel MAF would've been a good choice for Conn Smythe, and probably gave Geno a run for his money there.

Had he been a bit more consistent throughout the playoffs, especially against Washington, he would've had a much better chance. I still don't understand how anyone can believe they won in spite of him with the way he played in 4 of those last 5 games after going down 2-0 to start the SCF. Games 6 and 7 alone were nothing short of terrific.

Fleury wasn't great during the Cup run but he made big saves in each series that helped swing games in the Pens favor. Robbing Carter in the third period of game two against Philly was enormous, then he stole game four in Philly. The save on Ovechkin in game seven was potentially a game changer. My memory is failing on the Canes series but I want to say that he robbed them very late in game one to preserve that one. In any event, that series was such a mismatch that they didn't need him at his best. Against Detroit, he came through in the last two, stopping a late Cleary breakaway in game six and punctuating his playoff with his save on Lidstrom in the closing seconds of the finale. That was a different Fleury. That was a Fleury who didn't let you down, he came through in the biggest moments.

Henry Hank wrote:Fleury wasn't great during the Cup run but he made big saves in each series that helped swing games in the Pens favor. Robbing Carter in the third period of game two against Philly was enormous, then he stole game four in Philly. The save on Ovechkin in game seven was potentially a game changer. My memory is failing on the Canes series but I want to say that he robbed them very late in game one to preserve that one. In any event, that series was such a mismatch that they didn't need him at his best. Against Detroit, he came through in the last two, stopping a late Cleary breakaway in game six and punctuating his playoff with his save on Lidstrom in the closing seconds of the finale. That was a different Fleury. That was a Fleury who didn't let you down, he came through in the biggest moments.

And that's a Fleury who's still in there, somewhere, chained up in some dark mental dungeon by "Fragile Fleury". Unfortunately for him, you don't overcome confidence issues without playing through them and you don't play through confidence issues in the playoffs.

can't really find a lot of good replays, but i thought the goal he gave up to ericsson there was pretty soft. but the lidstrom save continues to be underrated. i hate when people accuse lidstrom of shooting it right into fleury. he placed that puck as good as he possibly could have, but MAF was super human.

slappybrown wrote:I can't recall any goalie who melts down as fantastically as MAF has in recent playoff history.

Sorry - I disagree - to me its a team issue - not a goalie issue. You can not continue to turn the puck over, give up unlimited odd man breaks, give guys free looks, let guys open down low and expect that your goalie is going to hold up for a 7 game series. This is what the penguins have done the past few playoff series. Blaming the turnover machine on the goalie to me is laughable. If anything, a lack of confidence should make you more careful, not less.

I am getting to the point where I'm starting to consider if the few Fleury apologists on here even watch games because no matter how badly a team plays in front of a goalie, there is no excuse for many of the goals Fleury allows. It is literally stuff you can put on youtube with Benny Hill's music playing in the background.

Last edited by Sarcastic on Mon May 13, 2013 11:03 am, edited 1 time in total.

can't really find a lot of good replays, but i thought the goal he gave up to ericsson there was pretty soft. but the lidstrom save continues to be underrated. i hate when people accuse lidstrom of shooting it right into fleury. he placed that puck as good as he possibly could have, but MAF was super human.

Ericsson's goal wasn't great, but it was legit. Full width D-to-D one-timer. Fleury was in good position and the puck just got over his shoulder. It was one of those types that he could've stopped, but shouldn't be crucified for getting beat on.

The only good thing that could come from this is this is really an embarrassing situation for Fleury. He's getting paid $5 million a year and is sitting on the bench in the playoffs. He can't feel good about that and either can the Penguins. If he gets another shot, he will have to make the most of it or I think they'll go in another direction next season.

Fleury is the home run hitter who strikes out a lot. That is a tough way to win in baseball because if it's cold, the wind is blowing in, etc. then you have a hard time stringing together hits or moving runners along.

It's not impossible to win that way, but it is easier to win with consistent fundamentals.

Fleury is just so hot/cold - but that stat line from 2009 was his greatest achievement by far in terms of dominance coupled with some consistency. The consistency was still about being consistently able to bounce back after bad games though - not to never have the bad ones in the 1st place.

There are times when a goalie gets beaten by great shots as well and enough of them happen in one game to make his save % low without a goalie allowing softies. Clearly from 2008 - today Fleury has never shown an ability to bat .300 in every game and occassionaly go 3-4 with 2 homers. At his best he gives us the 3-4 and 2 homers some nights and 4 strikeouts the next.

In 2009 he staggered his off games just well enough to win the Cup with the team he had in front of him. I still remember the 2008 Game 6 loss as he squirted the puck into his own net for the Cup clinching Detroit goal after having played well to that point in the game.

Fleury is not the cause of the Pens problems. He's part of the problem though. Switching him out for Vokoun is like putting this team on anti-depressants. It'll help them build up their confidence and make some changes that'll help them face their problems. But if they want to fulfill their potential they have to go off the meds at some point and deal with their issues at their core.

I don't think this team can win the stanley cup with Fleury on the bench. He's going to have to be either on the ice or not on the team at all. That might not make sense to a lot of people, but to me, it's reason enough to go back to MAF in Game 1.

My guess though is that Blysma goes with Vokoun, and Fleury comes back for Game 4 down in the series 1-2.

Last edited by pcm on Mon May 13, 2013 11:54 am, edited 1 time in total.

Fleury is somewhere in between franchise goalie / random goalie pickup right now (franchise goalie for the regular season, same as any random goalie for playoff), so question is if you can live with that. It's not like there's a lot of franchise goaltenders up for grabs that aren't showing the same issues as Fleury. Would you want to go trough a 82 games long season with a new random pickup along with Vokoun? I think there will be yet another season with Fleury regardless of how this one ends. But if Fleury doesn't make a comeback when he gets the nod again he will just be one of the Pens goaltenders next year, and not be the franchise goalie.

There's a ton of teams that have just picked up some random goaltender(s) and managed to get a great playoff run out of them. Quite possibly Penguins can get the same out of Fleury/Vokoun this year. It's not a bad duo, just paid quite a lot.